Authors

Tom Hoogendyk, University of Massachusetts

Briana Timmerman, University of South Carolina

Rama Viswanathan, Beloit College

Abstract

How do we extend the proplem-posing, open-ended paradigm to large (several hundred students) classroom situations? We would like a teaching strategy which allows 1) flexibility in the types of questions faculty may pose and in the types of responses students may contribute; 2) two-way communication between faculty technology and student technology (example, faculy provide the axes for a graph, students predict the shape of the line in the graph for a hypothetical situation); 3) emphasis on student collaboration on multiple scales (from groups of three discussing issues to co-authoring of writing in larger groups). In addition, we would like to complement this approach in the smaller lab settings that accomany large lectures by answering the question: What types of data can we acquire in real time in laboratories and how can we effectively share and use the data to involve the students in active investigation and analysis? Lastly, we would ideally like to be able to collect and log the student responses created during all of these activities as a type of assessment data for the effectiveness of the approach.

White paper available at:
http://bcrc.bio.umass.edu/coursewiki/index.php/VeryLargeClassrooms